After 30 years and one week, Cafe Hon in Hampden is closing permanently tonight and taking its giant Pink Flamingo with it.
Owner Denise Whiting announced that tonight’s dinner will be the last meal served and that the restaurant space at 1000 W. 36th St. will be leased by Tony Foreman and Cindy Wolf of the Foreman Wolf Restaurant Group.
This will be the seventh restaurant by Foreman Wolf, along with Petit Louis Bistro, Johnny’s, Cinghiale, Charleston, Cindy Lou’s Fish House, and The Milton Inn. The group also runs Bin 604 Wine + Spirits in Baltimore and Bin 201 Wine + Spirits in Annapolis.
“I am so happy that Cafe Hon provided a place for so many special memories,” Whiting said in a statement. “Tony and I have been acquaintances for decades and Petit Louis holds a special place in my heart. I have spent some of my best times at Petit. I look forward to seeing what comes next for the space.”
“Cafe Hon has been important to the city of Baltimore and to Hampden for many years,” Foreman said in a statement. “We respect all of the efforts at Cafe Hon that have brought the spirit of this deeply Baltimore neighborhood to the public eye.”
Cafe Hon was one of the pioneering businesses whose opening in the 1990s helped change 36th Street from a traditional corridor of service-oriented businesses to a regional destination for off-beat shopping, dining and people-watching.
Others in the new wave of eclectic, one-of-a-kind businesses included Hampden Junque and Atomic Books. Retailers that have closed, moved away or shifted permanently to online-only models since the onset of the pandemic include Sturgis Antiques and Collectables, Milk & Ice Vintage, Ma Petite Shoe, Trohv and True Vine.
Whiting, 63, famously caused a flap at one point when she attempted to trademark the use of the word ‘Hon,’ an effort she later dropped. In 2012, she brought in TV chef Gordon Ramsay to advise her on making changes to the café, for an episode of Kitchen Nightmares.
She told Baltimore Magazine, which first reported the closing, that the transition has been in the works since 2019 but was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Whiting said in a separate email message that the restaurant will “change concepts” under the new operators and won’t keep the Cafe Hon name. “They will reconcept and rename the place.”
But what will happen to the giant Pink Flamingo on the front of the building, designed and fabricated by Randall Gornowich?
“The bird will be rehomed,” she said, adding that she can’t say where it will go or exactly when it will come down. “We’re not quite sure yet, but Randall is working on it.”
Whiting will continue to host and organize HONfest, Baltimore’s annual two-day festival celebrating working women. Whiting founded HONfest in 1994 and this year’s event, June 11 and 12, marks the 28th year of the celebration.
I’m not going to miss Denise Whiting. I’ve not been a fan of hers since she attempted to trademark “Hon” and sent our shop Thanks, Hon! a cease and desist order in 2010. See ya, Hon.